Today we are going to be working on some exercises to boost our creative thinking abilities.
Exercise #1 - Creative Thinking
This quick and simple quiz estimates how well you engage in creative thinking to identify problems and their solutions. For each question, type your brief answer into an email and send it to me, keep your answers ready to compare during our discussion. Read each of these 12 questions carefully.
Q: There is one word in the English language that is always pronounced incorrectly. What is it?
Q: A man gave one son 10 cents and another son was given 15 cents. What time is it?
Q: A boat has a ladder that has six rungs, each rung is one foot apart. The bottom rung is one foot from the water. The tide rises at 12 inches every 15 minutes. High tide peaks in one hour. When the tide is at it's highest, how many rungs are under water?
Q: There is a house with four walls Each wall faces south. There is a window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What color is the bear?
Q: Is half of two plus two equal to two or three?
Q: There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on the floor. How did sloppy die?
Q: How much dirt would be in a hole 2 metres deep and 2 metres wide that has been dug with a square edged shovel?
Q: Suppose you are in Juneau, Alaska and drop a bowling ball from a height of three feet into a bucket of water at 10 degrees Celsius. Then, you drop a bowling ball of the same weight, mass, and size from the same height into another bucket at negative 10 degree Celsuis. Which ball would hit the bottom of the bucket fastest?
Q: What is the significance of the following: The year is 1978, thirty-four minutes past noon on May 6th.
Q: What can go up a chimney down, but can't go down a chimney up?
Q: If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field?
Q: What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move?
type your brief answer into an email and send it to me...
Exercise #2 - Divergent Thinking
You will be given a limited amount of time to complete this exercise, write your answers into an email and send it to me when finished.
1) How many different uses can you imagine for a paper clip?
2) List another object that you think has many uses and list as many of those uses that you can imagine.
Exercise #3 - Visual Creative Process / The Doodle Game
1) Have a piece of blank paper and a pencil or pen at the ready
2) Make a random scribble on the paper, you can even do it with your eyes closed
3) Pass the scribble to your left
4) Take the scribble your partner handed to you and look at it, look at it right side up and on its side. What do you see? A bird? A face? Maybe a paper clip? Find the image hidden in the scribble and begin drawing to bring it to life.
5) Show your results when done, then look around to see others results
This is a great exercise to get your creativity going, and it can be played anywhere, with people of all ages and drawing skills.
Have a great weekend!
- SW
